The Son I Lost
by caskett-tiva21
Summary: Jenny has a secret that has been haunting her for a very long time. One day the visit from a certain lieutenant forces her to face the past. What she discovers isn't at all what she expected.
1. Prologue

**Heyy I'm back. **

**If any of you are reading my other stories, just know that I haven't forgotten about them. I'll get to them. This one has just been bugging me for a while and I needed to get it out.**

**This is set around S5. Jenny isn't sick and Judgment Day won't happen in my story. **

**I don't own anything.**

**Enjoy.**

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**Prologue**

Jenny Shepard was the director of NCIS, and a good one at that. Yet she had one secret, something that had nothing to do with work, but haunted her, none the less. It was something that had happened a very long time ago. That didn't stop her from thinking about it every single day. She had never told anybody. Not even Gibbs or Ziva, who she had once been pretty close to. She wanted to tell someone, but she couldn't. It hurt too much to even think about it. She had only been about twenty years old when it happened, but it had hit her hard. Jenny had never had an easy life. Her mom died, her father (supposedly) killed himself. She was alone at the time and to have that taken away from her too, was very hard. Today was his birthday. He would've been 30. She tried hard not to think about it, but that was impossible. Little did she know it was going to be even harder by the end of the day.

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**I know it's very short, but that's just the introduction. If you like it please let me know and I'll post more. And I promise I will.**

**O.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

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Jenny was not in a good mood and everybody noticed. Eventually, Gibbs got tired of hearing her yelling all over the building and went to tell her that.

"She doesn't want to be disturbed." Cynthia tried to keep him from going into the office, but as usual, she didn't succeed.

Jenny looked up when the door slammed open. She knew who it was the second it opened. Who else could it be?

"What do you want Jethro?" She asked annoyed. She was in no mood to argue with him, especially not today. The thing is, he didn't know why and she wasn't about to tell him. He could tell something was bothering her. It wasn't only the fact that he had once again barged in. There was something else.

"You okay Jen?" he asked frowning.

"Just tell me what you want." She snapped. He was about to answer when his phone rang. They got a case and he just muttered "see you later" and left the office. Jenny sighed when he left and leaned back into her chair, turning it around to look out the window. The view of the city calmed her.

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In the afternoon a man in uniform walked out of the elevator and to the bullpen. He was in his thirties, handsome, at least Ziva thought so, Tony not really, he was tall and had light brown hear. Ziva stood up and turned to him.

"Special agent Ziva David, what can I do for you?" She introduced herself.

"Lieutenant Matthew Davis. I'm here to see special agent Gibbs. He called me about Mark. " He answered.

"Of course. He went for coffee, but he will be back in a few minutes. You can wait here. I'm really sorry for your loss by the way." Ziva said. She had heard that their victim and Lieutenant Davis had been best friends ever since they were kids. She knew all too well what that was like.

"Thank you."

After Gibbs returned he went to the conference room with Lieutenant Davis to talk to him about his friend. He seemed like a nice guy and he and Johnson didn't have any apparent issues, but his gut told him something was off. He'd have to look into this Matthew guy. After a few minutes the director came in. He didn't think he'd see her again that day, at least not if she could help it. She came though, needing to get her mind off things. Gibbs looked to the door when it opened.

"Matt, this is Director Shepard." He said when she sat down. The moment she saw him, the color drained from her face.

"You okay Je…Director?" To be honest he was worried about her. She was really on edge these days and he didn't get why. That was something Leroy Jethro Gibbs hated.

"I'm sorry you just looked familiar. Go on." She apologized after she came back to the present. That man looked pretty much like her father did when he was younger. And that troubled her. She didn't think too much of it. Today wasn't a day where she could be objective. She saw what she'd like to see wherever she was going.

Gibbs gave him a glass of water in order to get his prints and DNA. Something was definitely off and he needed to know what.

"Thank you. That's all I needed for now." Gibbs told him, standing up. Jenny and Matt did so as well.

"You're gonna find who did this to my friend, right?" Matt asked. "I will." Gibbs reassured him. He knew he didn't kill his friend. It was something else that bugged him about this guy.

Lieutenant Davis left NCIS and Gibbs packed up the empty glass of water and went back to his team. Jenny went with him. She needed to be around people and not alone in her office. Gibbs went to Abby's lab with the glass and Jenny sat in his chair, waiting for him to come back. She wanted to work on something other than fixing whatever mess Gibbs got himself into or paperwork. She wanted to work on a case, remind herself of the good ol' days.

"Okay so Lieutenant Matthew Davis. He's married. He went from foster home to foster home until he was legally adopted at age fourteen. Adoptive parents both died when he was eighteen. He then joined the marines. Biological mother died at birth and there was never anything on the father. He's got no siblings and his record is clean. Boss, why are we doing this? The guy is clean, had no motive for killing Johnson, who was his childhood friend. We're wasting our time on him." Tony explained and complained.

"My gut tells me there's something off with him. There's something we're not seeing and I need to know what." Right then his phone rang and he answered, " Yeah, Gibbs."

_"It's me. I've got something on Davis. Maybe my baby messed up, but to this day it never has so what I'm going to show you is right. You really need to see this. You need to get down here like right now. And bring the director." _Abby's voice came through the phone. "Be right there Abs. You're coming with me." He pointed at Jenny. They walked to the elevator and pressed the button to Abby's lab.

"Whataya got Abs?" He asked when they got to the lab. Jenny was confused as to why she was needed down there too. As far as she knew, Abby didn't even know she was working on the case. She was confused and from the look on Abby's face, she was as well.

"Well I found the biological mother. She's not dead. It's really weird. I pulled the DNA from the glass and I didn't think I'd find a match to any relatives in the system, but I got a match after only a few seconds." She said, all the while looking straight at Jenny. Gibbs was now confused too. It was unusual to find relatives in less than a minute. And why was Abby only looking at Jenny?

"Are you going to tell me who it is?" He asked inpatient. Abby sighed, but nodded and pushed a button on the keyboard and on one side of the screen was a photo of Lieutenant Davis, on the other side a photo of none other than Jenny Shepard and the word _match_ in between. Jenny was Matthew Davis' biological mother, which made absolutely no sense to any of them. All for different reasons, though.

Jenny looked at the screen, shock written on her face. All she could do was stare. She realized what she was seeing about two minutes later and sat down, noticing that Gibbs had already placed a chair behind her, expecting her to need it. Slowly, she felt tears well up and couldn't hold them back.

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**Hope you liked it.**

**Any review is appreciated:)**


	3. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the reviews I got. One was by a ****_Guest_**** so if you are reading this, know that most of your questions will be answered in this chapter and I don't intend on ending every chapter like I did the last one. **

**Enjoy.**

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Gibbs was shocked and confused. Matthew Davis was Jenny's son and she didn't seem to have had the slightest idea about it. He wanted to understand. They all did. It did explain the feeling he had since meeting him and Jenny's reaction when she came into the conference room, though.

He laid a hand on her shoulder and Abby went into another part of her lab. As much as she wanted to know what the hell was going on, she could see they needed to talk about this alone.

"Jen?" he called gently. That seemed to work and she finally looked at him instead of the screen she had been staring at for the past ten minutes.

"This is impossible. They told me he died. How can that be possible?" She stammered, more tears leaving her eyes.

"Why don't we go into your office so you can tell me what's goin' on?! That alright?" He asked. This would be a long conversation. One he really didn't want to have it in Abby's lab. And she needed to continue working on the case. He didn't have to, he had his team. They'd have to do it alone for a while.

Jenny nodded and stood up. They walked out of the lab together. Gibbs rested a hand on the small of her back and led her to the elevator and into her office. They sat on the couch and he waited for her to say something. He knew that if he rushed her, she wouldn't say anything at all.

"When I was around nineteen, I got pregnant. It was a mistake, but after a while, I realized that that baby was the only thing I had left. My mom was dead. My dad had ‚_killed himself'_. I was all alone. It got even more real when I learned it was a boy. I was really looking forward to it by then.

When he was born I held him for hours. I couldn't tear my eyes off of him. He had to be looked after for the first night and I was exhausted so the nurses brought him to the nursery. That was the last time I saw him. When I woke up the next morning they told me there had been complications and he hadn't survived. They didn't tell me exactly what and wouldn't let me see him. At the time, I didn't think much of it, I had just lost my baby, but now that I think about it, it was really weird. The doctors were also acting strangely, but again, I didn't realize it at the time." Jenny explained, tears rolling down her cheeks. She stood up and went through her purse, taking out a seemingly old photo. She handed it to Gibbs and sat back down.

"That was taken by a nurse about an hour after he was born. I've had it on me ever since. That photo was with me wherever I went. I even had it in Europe." She smiled a little at the end. Gibbs put his arm around her shoulders and she leaned back. "It's gonna be okay, Jen. We'll find out what happened. I promise." He told her. No matter what happened, Gibbs still cared about her a lot. He always would, even if they were never again more than friends.

"Thank you." She told him sincerely. They both knew they still had a murder case to work on. The sooner they solved it, the better.

"How about this, we solve the case, find out who killed Matt's best friends and then we both look for what the hell happened thirty years ago. Maybe the team could even help. That alright with you?" She just nodded, knowing that it was the best way to do things and she still needed a few days to digest that her son wasn't dead. Jenny also felt guilty for not realizing the weirdness of the situation when her son _died_. It could've maybe spared him the years of foster care he had to go through. She really needed to know what happened.

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"Okay, now that the case is closed,I need a favor. Actually the director needs a favor. You gonna help?" Gibbs asked them coming back from Jenny's office. She was the one who'd caught something the day after her talk with Gibbs. She wanted to get that case over with and finally find out what happened to her son.

Tony, Ziva and McGee were confused. They had noticed that something was different with their Director, they just didn't know what. The three of them looked at each other. A silent agreement was made that they'd help in any way they could.

"Sure Gibbs. What can we do?" Ziva asked.

"Right now, I need you to go home and get some sleep. When you come in tomorrow, I want you to find everything you can on Lieutenant Matthew Davis. From the day he was born, until he joined the marines. You talk to the social worker that put him into foster care, to the doctors and nurses at the hospital where he was born and ask them exactly what happened that day. Every detail they can remember. Got it?"

"Of course, but why are we doing this? We looked him up two days ago and told you what we knew." Tony said. He didn't get why they had to go through his life again.

"And what does it have to do with Director Shepard?" McGee asked confused.

"You'll find out soon enough. Now go home." Gibbs said and walked away. The others packed their things and left as well, still confused, but willing to help their bosses.

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The next day came pretty fast for everyone. The team started to look into Davis' life the moment they got to their desks. Ziva was looking from the day of his birth up until he was seven and, Tony looked from there until his fourteenth birthday when he was adopted and McGee from fourteen to eighteen, when he joined the marines.

Ziva found the hospital Matthew was born in and still needed to find the doctor. She couldn't find his or her name on any file she had and didn't think that doctor still worked after thirty years, but since she had the name of the hospital and the date of birth she could always try. That _case_ was really weird. The only things she could find about his birth were _when_ he was born and _where_ he was born. Nothing else. Not even the name of his biological mother.

Arriving at the hospital, Ziva went straight to the nurses station and flashed her badge and ID.

"Hello. I'm special agent Ziva David. NCIS. Is there an OB/GYN working here that was already here thirty years ago?" Ziva asked the nurse at the desk. The nurse looked like she had been there for long and Ziva hoped she knew something, because looking for the details of the birth of someone who's thirty years old and a file without any useful information in it wasn't easy. Hopefully it had been a memorable day.

"Yes there is. Doctor Ann Miller. We started in the same year. She's been here for thirty two years. She's retiring next week, so you're lucky. What is this about?" The nurse asked Ziva. She was relieved that the doctor still worked there because tracking down a doctor she didn't even have the name of would be hell.

"It's about a child she delivered, about thirty years ago." Ziva told her and saw the look on her face change. That woman knew something. Or at least suspected what it was about. She wouldn't say anything before Dr. Miller got there, though.

"I'll page her. She should be here in a couple of minutes." Ziva nodded and sat in one of the chairs of the waiting room, asking herself what this was all about and especially what it had to do with their Director.

About two minutes later she was pulled from her thoughts by a doctor calling her name.

"Agent David?" The older doctor asked.

"Yes." Ziva answered standing up.

"What can I do for you?"

"Is there somewhere we can talk?" Dr. Miller nodded and led her towards the hall. Ziva stopped at the nurses station.

"Can you have someone replace you for a while? I think I will need to speak to you as well." Something told her that that nurse knew something too.

"Of course." She made a quick call and followed them to the conference room.

"So I need to know everything you can remember about June 24th 1984." Ziva said and immediately sensed the change in atmosphere. Both women tensed and looked at each other with worried looks.

"I take it you remember that day!?" Ziva said almost glaring at them. She wanted to know what the hell that day had to do with Jenny.

Dr. Miller sighed. "Yes we do. Something terrible happened that day and we were told never to talk about it again," Ziva raised her eyebrows, "but I guess now would be a good time to bring it up again. A newborn little boy was kidnapped that day. His name was…" she was interrupted by Ziva, "Matthew."

"That's right."

"What happened to him that day?"

"It was one of the first deliveries I performed without supervision. Everything was going great. The mother was a young woman. She was only nineteen, but you could see she had gone through a lot and she loved that little boy more than anything. It was beautiful to see her hold him. We had to put him in observation for the first night just to be sure everything was absolutely right and she was exhausted so we took her baby to the nursery. During the night, someone broke in while nobody was there and took him. We had no idea how it could happen. In his crib was a note. It said that whoever talked to the cops would die and the baby would too. Rose and I went to the chief with it. We asked him what we should do and he told us to tell his mother that there had been complications and he'd died of them. He made us promise never to tell anyone about it and the next morning he came with us into her room and told that poor woman that her baby died. He told her that arrangements had been made and that she should go home. We didn't know how he could possibly think that a mother wouldn't want to know exactly what happened to her child, but she didn't. She was so devastated; I guess she couldn't really think straight. I understand why. I have children and if anyone told me something like that happened I wouldn't be thinking straight either. Hell I couldn't think at all." Dr. Miller explained and Ziva could see she was really upset about what had happened.

"We wanted to tell someone, but we were young and stupid and I know it's not an excuse, but we didn't really know what else we could do. It killed me to see her like that, but we had no other choice." Nurse Rose continued. They both felt very guilty, but there was nothing they could do about it now.

"I understand why you didn't tell anyone. Do you remember the name of the mother?" Ziva asked.

"Jennifer Shepard." Dr. Miller said a moment later. Ziva's eyes went wide and she leaned back in her chair.

"Oh my god, Jenny." She whispered, clearly shocked. She thought about everything that happened in the last days and the way Jenny acted. It also explained why they had to find out everything they could about Matthew Davis. Knowing that, she was going to do everything she could to find what happened. Jenny had always been a good friend and she had gone through enough as it was. She didn't deserve that.

Ziva thanked both women and left the hospital. Getting back to her desk she told Gibbs and Jenny what she'd learned from the nurse and the doctor. DiNozzo and McGee were still looking into the rest of Davis' life.

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**I'd love to know what you think about this story so far...so REVIEW, please:)**

**O.**


	4. Chapter 3

**Enjoy. _**

An hour later Gibbs was driving to Matthew Davis' residence. He was going to tell him about his mother, as long as he wanted to know about her of course. Jenny couldn't come with him because, even though it was already seven o'clock, she had to stay at NCIS and Gibbs didn't want to have to tell Matt there. He knew he and his wife had the day off so he could properly talk to them.

He got there after about a half an hour and parked his car in the driveway before going to knock on the door. A woman with a little girl in her arms opened the door.

"Hi, what can I do for you?" She asked smiling.

"Is your husband here?" Gibbs asked nicely. This wasn't going to be easy. "Yes, come on in." she said and opened the door wider, to let him in. Right when he set foot in the house, Matthew came out of the living room.

"Special Agent Gibbs?! What can I do for you? Is it about Mark?" he asked confused. They had found the killer so it didn't make sense that Gibbs was in his house.

"It's Gibbs and no, it's not about Mark. It's a more personal matter. Do you have a moment?" Gibbs asked not really knowing how to approach this.

"Sure." His wife was already walking to the opposite direction, letting them talk alone, but Gibbs held her back, "Stay." He said softly. She and her husband frowned, but nodded. "I'm just going to put Lily to bed and I'll be right back down." She said and walked up the stairs with the little girl. Gibbs and Matt went to the living room.

"Would you like a drink?" He asked Gibbs. He nodded. "Bourbon alright?" Gibbs chuckled, but nodded. Not a lot of people drank bourbon, but apparently, just like Jenny, he liked it too. Although, Jenny only liked it because she'd spent too much time with Gibbs.

His wife came back a few minutes later and sat down with them.

"Gibbs, my wife Jane. Jane this is special agent Gibbs from NCIS." Matthew introduced them and they shook hands. Gibbs sighed knowing that now was the moment his life would change.

"That's gonna be confusing, but what do you know about your mother?" Matt frowned at that. Why would Gibbs ask about his mother?

"My mother died when I was born. That's pretty much all I know. I don't even know her name." he said looking down, still not getting why Gibbs was asking him that. Jane took his hand and squeezed it. Matt's mother had always been a sensitive matter, since he didn't know a thing about her.

"That's gonna be hard to hear, but your mom isn't dead Matthew." Gibbs told him and both their heads snapped back up.

"What? How would you even know that?" Matt asked. If that was true, his whole childhood, or at least what little of a childhood he had, was a lie. But what the hell could have happened?

"I know that, because I know her. She was told you died a few hours after you were born. She was twenty years old at the time." Gibbs told him and saw Matt sinking back into the couch.

"What actually happened to Matt?" His wife asked. The man himself didn't seem to be able to say anything right now. What he was about to tell them wouldn't make things any easier.

"He was kidnapped from the hospital. We still don't know exactly what happened after that, but you somehow ended up in foster care a few weeks later. We will find out, but right now I have to ask you something." Gibbs told Matt. He looked to Gibbs again.

"Yeah. What do you wanna know?" He asked with a sigh.

"Do you want to know who your mother is?" Gibbs asked. He hoped he would say yes, because even though Jenny would understand if he didn't it would still hurt her more than he cared to think about.

"Yes." He really did want to know. He had always regretted not knowing anything about his mother. Not even her name or a photo and that always hurt. He wanted to know where he was from and wanted his little girl to know where she was from too.

"You already met her, actually." Gibbs said and Matt and Jane's eyebrows rose. Gibbs smiled a little.

"Remember the day you came to NCIS about Lt. Johnson?," Matthew nodded still confused, "The director came in and joined the interview. Remember her?!" He nodded again and Gibbs saw he didn't see where he was going with that. "You're Jenny Shepard's son, Matthew." Matt's jaw dropped at that.

"My mom is the director of NCIS?" Matt asked dumbfounded. That was a surprise. He would've never thought his mother was the director of NCIS. Then again, he didn't even know she was alive until now.

"Yeah, she is." Gibbs confirmed and Matthew was speechless.

"So, she thought Matt was dead?" Jane asked. She couldn't believe how someone could survive the supposed death of their child. Especially after only a few hours.

"Yes, but I'm gonna let her explain everything else." Gibbs said knowing that Jenny wanted to explain everything herself.

"Why isn't she here with you?" Matt asked.

"Something about paperwork, but that's the excuse she always gives. She was scared you wouldn't wanna know who she was. I know her and I can tell you she couldn't handle that."

"Do you think she's still there?" Matt asked hopeful. He really wanted to get to know his mom.

"Yeah she's still there. Probably lookin' out the window, worried about what could happen." Gibbs said with a smile.

"Then let's go. I want to talk to her before tomorrow." Matthew said standing up. He looked at his wife questioningly.

"Go, I'll stay with Lily." She said with a smile.

Gibbs and Matt left the house and drove to NCIS. He was fidgeting during the way. Being too nervous, he didn't even notice when the car stopped.

"Hey. We're here." Gibbs told him pulling him away from his thoughts.

They walked into the building and took the elevator to go to the bullpen. They were surprised to see the team was still there. Tony was sleeping in his chair, McGee was apparently writing and Ziva was doing what he was guessing was paperwork. They stopped by her desk.

"Hey Ziver, what are you still doing here?" he asked pointing to the team.

"I wanted to stay and make sure Jenny was alright and did not spend the entire night in her office and those two decided to do the same. With everything we found out, we wanted to be sure she was really alright." Ziva said softly.

"Thank you, but I think you can go home now. Pretty sure she'll go home soon enough." He told her.

"No. We're staying until we see her leave." Ziva said sternly, turning back to her paperwork. Gibbs smiled and looked at Matt who also had a smile on his face. They'd do the introductions another time.

"You can go see her you know. Office at the end of the catwalk." Gibbs told him pointing to up the stairs.

"Thank you."

Gibbs decided to do the same as his team and walked to his desk, knowing that despite what he'd told Ziva, they'd probably be there all night.

Matthew walked up the stairs and then to the end of the catwalk stopping at the door that said _Director Shepard_. He entered the first door and saw a desk. Cynthia's desk. She wasn't there so he went for the next door. He knocked and a faint _come in_ could be heard. He slowly opened the door and she didn't look up, expecting it to be someone from the team. She was looking down at what seemed to be a picture. She had a small smile on her face, but also sadness in her eyes. Matt cleared his throat and she looked up.

"Matthew?!" She asked, not trusting her own eyes.

"Hi." He said, not sure what to call her. Jenny put the picture on her desk and walked up to him leading him to the couch.

"Do you want a drink?" Jenny asked. She certainly needed one and with the few days he had just had, she figured he probably did too.

"Sure."

"Bourbon?" Jenny asked already filling a glass with it. It was the only thing she had left anyway. He nodded with a smile. She handed him the glass and sat next to him. They were silent for a few seconds, neither of them knowing where to start.

"So, you're my mom." He stated.

**Hope you liked it:) Reviews would be nice.**


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